Description

Team Fortress 2 is the successor of Team Fortress Classic and is also a class-based multiplayer team shooter.

The game features nine classes which cover all the classics from the original game including the Heavy Weapons Guy, the Pyro and the Spy. Each class has a different set of weapons and abilities. While the Heavy Weapons Guy has his mini-gun and moves slowly over the map, the medic stays in the background and uses his healing beam to assist the Heavy. If he does so long enough the medic can then trigger an Übercharge which makes both targets invulnerable for a few seconds. The spy is instead more of a loner and disguises himself as the enemy in order to infiltrate them and make instant melee-kills.

To use all these classes the release version of the game features six maps with different gameplay modes. On the remake of the TFC-map "2Fort" you play old-school CTF. On "Granary" and "Well" the teams need to capture all five control points in a chain (much like in Dark Messiah of Might & Magic) in order to win. "Dustbowl" and "Gravel Pit" feature assault-type gameplay were one team is placed in the offensive and the other in defense. Last but not least on the map "Hydro" the teams fight over two points at one time in an attempt to reach each other's main base. In April 2008, a new game mode called Payload was introduced with the map Gold Rush. In payload the blue team has to push a rail kart carrying a bomb through a series of checkpoints before eventually detonating it in the red teams base. The red team has to defend the checkpoints and prevent the cart from reaching the end of its route within a limited time.

The game logs every player activity and makes intensive use of statistics. Even when you die the game tells you for example how long you've survived and if you've done better in the past. At the end of each round you get a personal overview with statistics for every class and like in Battlefield 2 you can access all the stats from the main menu. Also included are a developer commentary and a bunch of achievements.

Graphically Team Fortress 2 features a unique graphical style called "signature" which gives it a very comical and humorous look but without the black cell-shading elements that you know from games like XIII. The Windows game can be bought stand-alone, while the Xbox 360 version is only available in The Orange Box.

Trivia

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Birthday mode

On August 24, the game will turn "Birthday Mode" on. If enabled on the server you're connected to, this will replace all blood and gibs from dead players with festive and funny props, and the Critical Hit sound is replaced by a sound effect that has people cheering, playing horns and using champagne poppers. Additionally, players will wear a festive party hat on top of their heads, even if you're already wearing a hat. Certain maps will also load a beach ball that can be shot or meleed by both teams (until someone kicks it out of the map!)

A bug in the game caused Birthday Mode to be activated on August 20, 2010 - a full four days earlier than normal. This has since been addressed with a quick patch.

The original Team Fortress, which ran on the Quake engine, was released on August 24, 1996.

Development

The first announcement of the game was in 1999 as Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms. Back then the game was more serious both in graphics and in overall gameplay and was set in the modern world with two military units fighting each other and accomplishing objectives.

In 2000 Valve Corporation then announced that the game would be delayed because of the switch to the in-house developed 3D-Renderer Engine which is now know as the Source Engine.

Until July 13st, 2006 no more information about the game other than the claim that it was still in development would surface and what you can play now is what Valve showed on that day.

German version

In some German versions, the blood and gore effects were removed or replaced with more harmless things, e.g. when a player explodes hamburgers and screws fly around instead of body parts. A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).

References

A couple of things a Soldier will say in response to dominating a Sniper references the controversial censorship of the Australian version of Left 4 Dead 2. These lines were added in the Soldier vs. Demoman update.